Hi,
I’m new to this board, so here goes with my first question.
I have a friend, Kate, who has a new boyfriend that has been telling her he was a Navy Seal and was awarded three Navy Crosses, three Purple Hearts and has killed 150 men in hand-to-hand combat.
It wasn’t difficult to disprove these lies. My dilemma now is do I just burst her bubble or let her find out in time? I am hoping that being a pathological liar (whatever that means) is a serious character disorder and whether he may be dangerous in any way?
Anyone with any insight into this kind of behavior and whether I should intervene or not would be greatly appreciated. I personally would like to know if the person I was thinking of marrying was a jerk, but my husband says to stay out of it!!
Val Branch:confused:
Is he on one of these sites?
http://www.justasailor.com/fakevets.html
http://www.cyberseals.org/wos.htm
http://www.nightscribe.com/Military/SEALs/wannabe_seals.htm
(plus many more- search for “fake seals” and “wannabe seals” on Google)
If he is not, and you have a good reason to think he is full of it (if he is bragging about 150 hand-to-hand combat kills, chances are he is way full of it), turn him in (there are handy forms to tell these guys about him and they will check him out). If your friend “accidentally” hears that her boyfriend has been proven to be a pathological liar, so be it.
I’d say something no matter what. She’s your friend, right? Why would you wait or hold back? This guy’s obviously a deadbeat. If she doesn’t believe whatever proof you have, then so be it, but at least you did your duty and tried to warn her.
Yucca - welcome to the boards. On the first page of our forum are handy descriptions of each forum, to help let you know what kind of topics you’ll find there. For example, in the one called “Comments on Cecils’ Columns” you should find threads referring to specific columns that Cecil has written.
While this forum is labeled “general questions” and in some fashion, you had a ‘general question’, I think it was less looking for a factual answer (“how do I turn some one in for this, how do I check if this person is telling the truth”) and more looking for advice. Perhaps it would get more attention in another forum. If you email one of the mods for this forum (click on their name at the top of the forum), and explain what happened, they may be able to move it for you.
Anyhow. On to your question - When I’ve known something specific about a person’s loved one, **if ** they asked my opinion, I’d carefully give it, but not until then.
Thank you TX, Flyboy and Wring for your input.
I did give Cyberseals.org his informatjon and they wrote back and said that he was a wannabe. I also have a book from the library listing all of the Navy Cross recipients from 1964-1973 and he definitely is not in there.
From what I have read at quite a few websites where they expose wannabes and some post them on their Wall of Shame, the incidence of the people to be claiming to be Vietnam war heros has increased dramatically since around 1997.
This man seems a little ignorant about his claims as he would have only been 17 in 1969. If you add two years of service in the Navy and training for the Seals, he could not have done two tours of duty in Vietnam.
One gentleman I corresponded with shot down all of his claims as pure fantasy such as the wannabe saying that his missions were so secret that they (the government) would not acknowledge him. For that reason he has no benefits of any kind. B.S. The majority of these fakes hide behind secretiveness. The Cyberseals site emphasizes that there were secret missions, but NO SECRET SEALS
My personal opinion is that the guy is pretty disgusting and dishonors the people who died and risked their lives in the military.
I can see both sides of telling my friend and not telling her. She is a bit of a know-it-all and I know she will be incredulous and argue like crazy that it is me that must be misinformed. Being kind of a chicken heart, I thought of sending her an anonymous e-mail referring to the Cyberseal site!
If he tells her these kinds of lies, what else might he be lying about - kind of scary.
Val
Wow, three Navy Crosses! That must be something of a record. I don’t think even Chesty Puller had three. The Navy Cross is a very high honor indeed, and this clown does not have three of them. As for three Purple Hearts, these are given for being wounded in combat. He must have three pretty gruesome scars to show for this.
On the other hand, he is obviously a pathological liar and probably a narcissist. Any woman who dates scum like this is at the least going to be losing a lot of money. If you know this woman, you might care to drop off in a confidential envelope at her place of employment an anonymous evelope containing a print out of the above posts.
:mad:
Yucca, except for the age, it sounded like you were talking about an @$$401e I used to work with. Besides saying he was a Navy Seal, he said he did computer work for Steven Spielburg on the Indiana Jones movies (besides only being a teenager then), worked for NBC News, was a firefighter in California, etc.
A friend of mine at work used to keep track of all the lies we heard (tenants of our office building would tell us stories), and posted them on a website. He kept it up until he found out “Johnny BS” was reading it. He didn’t want to contribute to helping him keep track of what lies he told to what people.
If I only had a dollar for ever fool who claimed to be a navy SEAL or Marine I would be filthy rich 
I have found most actual Navy SEALs I do know do not tend to bring it up or brag about it. Repeated bragging about former occupations is a give away most times.
I ran across one guy who was “ex-navy SEAL” “retired FBI”
He was going on claiming all kinds of fun stuff. I finally nailed him when he mentioned a few FBI cases he “worked” on.
I busted him when I did not recognise my god mothers name who would have been his direct superior for those cases
I find these deluded souls amusing at the bar from time to time. But, I would find it no where near as amusing if a friend was dating such a wannabe.
Osip
Even a high-profile professional entertainer and politician like Jesse Ventura doesn’t talk much about being an ex-navey SEAL; ever see him in an interview on the subject?- he’ll talk a bit about the training, but pretty much clams up completely about anything further.
Add to the scum list the guys who hang around bars and tell women that they work as undercover cops… oh christ, let’s not even go there. This type of guy was portrayed pretty well in “True Lies”… just think of the car salesman who ended up pissing himself .
Here’s my suggestion: when the opportunity presents itself, ask to see his medal collection. That may stump him. Just try to expose him in a passive manner like this.
Jesse Ventura was never a Navy SEAL. He was a member of a NAVY UDT (Underwater Demolition Team). It’s a frogman job, but not in combat. Here’s one of many stories you can find about this if you do a search on Google using “Jesse Ventura” and “Navy SEAL”:
http://www.cursor.org/stories/how_candid.htm
Yucca13, tell Kate that these stories of her boyfriend’s must be lies. If she rejects you for telling the truth, why would you want to continue hanging around with her? For that matter, why do you want to hang around a woman who gets her kicks listening to a boyfriend telling exaggerated war stories?
I almost hate to admit this in public, but I have a brother who does this all the time. Bad enough that he singlehandedly brought down the Berlin Wall by jumping in without a parachute and only a bowie knife [He bent sheet metal for 2 years in the Marine Corps: honorable enough, but hardly Rambo], but he would bring me into his delusions! I worked in Space Command for several years, and once when I went to visit him, I found him at the local tavern (of course), telling some local fauna that his Astronaut Brother would be in any minute! Since then, I’ve been promoted to the CIA in his stories to women.
Many years ago, I had a couple of classified assignments (nothing sexy, unfortunately!), and we were always given a boring-sounding, generic cover cover to tell anyone who asked. “Oh, I’m working in the communications shop.”
Over the years, I’ve never had this generalization proven wrong: The importance and secrecy of a person’s military exploits are inversely proportional to the amount of bragging they do about them. Not sig-worthy, but good enough to call a Law.
This was another very informative thread. I’ve searched, but am having trouble finding - sites on people who fake being in the Rangers, or the Marines?
As to the OP - I don’t even think it’s really a matter of opinion, I think it’s pretty clearly a factual answer, that pathological liars like these are dangerous people who are profoundly disconnected with reality. She needs to hear it, and needs to hear it again and again until she believes it, or she decides to ignore your advice and walk away. In which case, there’s no saving her. If she believes these things, then who knows what else will happen between the two of them.
These people are dangerous. I do not view them as being harmless liars and braggarts.
Here’s a phony military experience website:
Well, I don’t know if I’d use that broad a brush on all of ‘em. Ya got a continuum, from grandpa’s occasional exaggeration, through guys like my brother, who’s generally too farfetched to be believed (and is just trading his BS for a night’s pleasure, anyway), to goombas as described in the OP (takin’ it to the altar!). Don’t get me wrong, I find the latter two plenty distasteful (but the former is kinda cute)–I just don’t think they’re all dangerous to society.
Was he or wasn’t he?
See http://www.cyberseals.org/jesse.htm from one of the sites previously mentioned in his thread.
Phony veterans with big claims to military glory are as old as armies. Look at the number of guys who claimed to be the lone survivor of Custer’s Last Stand or the first man up Missionary Ridge. Our old bugaboo, Senator McCarthy billed himself as Tail Gunner Joe even though he had never been on a combat mission.
There is an easy way to check such claims if you are willing to risk a confrontation. Ask the self-proclaimed hero to let you see his DD Form 214. This thing is a government document that lists the individual’s military history to include the date of all appointments and promotion, time in service, overseas service, job, awards and decorations. It is issued to each service member on release from active duty. Many veterans also get a laminated billfold size copy which they carry like a draft card (remember draft cards?). If the guy won’t show it or says he does not carry it with him, you can check with the local tax assessor since you claim veterans’ tax exemptions and credits by filing the form at the court house.
As others have said, this guy is claiming way too much to be real.